1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a network management system that manages devices connected to a network, a network management method, an information processing apparatus, a device, and a storage medium.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, a network management station, namely an information processing apparatus such as a personal computer manages a state of various devices (managed object nodes) connected to a network. In most cases, the network management station manages the whole network independently. In recent years, a demand for equipping and managing a plurality of network management stations has been increasing. However, a conventional operation of a plurality of the network management stations causes problems that a plurality of the network management stations perform settings contradictory each other to one of the devices (managed object node), which leads to incorrect settings as a result.
To this end, reduction in network load and unified management have been wanted to be realized by separating the search range among a plurality of the set network management stations and sharing the collected information one another. A system in which a plurality of the network management stations search for mutual existence and work together has been needed in order to fulfill the above demand.
Conventionally, each of the network management stations has searched for another of the network management stations by means of broadcast in order to search for the mutual existence (see e.g. Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication (Kokai) No. 2003-216572), or the direct communication protocol has searched for another of the network management stations.
On the other hand, the network management station has needed to search for devices connected to the network managed by itself in order to realize its original purpose.
However, as in the above-mentioned prior art example, there has been a problem mentioned-below when each of the network management stations searches for another of the network management station by means of the broadcast or the direct communication protocol. Namely, this kind of search has caused very low efficiency in use of the network. Especially, it has increased traffic on the network to search frequently for nodes (devices), whose addresses on the network are not known preliminarily, by means of the broadcast or the direct communication protocol.